In all seriousness, it looks pretty good. Hope the AI isn't so bad that ranged units win everything without even trying. I still remember light infantry killing entire regiments because they just stood there and took it in Shogun and Empire.

My main question is how do individual soldiers interact with each other in combat. Rome and Medieval 2 had a simple mechanic where a soldier could only fight one other soldier at a time but if a second one attacked then the outnumbered party would not be able to attack due to constantly parrying or taking hits.

It was actually better than the mechanics of Shogun as troops seemed to take forever to perform a kill animation and a wall of troops would get held up by a single opponent.

There is something special about the original Rome total war. Strategic and tactical layers meshed well together, and especially when playing as rome, it just felt really good to play. Rome gets many powerful units, but is beset by enemies and betrayal on all sides-- exciting, fun, and immensely satisfying.

Empire failed to match that level of enjoyment for me. I didn't bother with the later iterations either- they just don't have the same allure despite technical improvements.

A return to rome promises to be great, but i do hope they manage to maintain the subtle qualities of the original, or it will promise to be a hollow remake.

oh my god! anytime i hear about this game i get goosebumps. right now the totalwar series is my favorite series. i even enjoyed Empire to great states! and i cant wait to get this game. it also seems that everyday they say the game is even better than what we expected before. I WANT THIS GAME! GIVE IT TO ME!